New to boilers lots of questions!

Hello, I have been searching the forum and just wanted to ask a few specific questions. Let me first give you the specs of my system if I may: Weil-McLain CG boiler with honeywell zone valves (5), grundfos pumps?, spirovent(don't know what this is), something inside the boiler is set to 170, something that says Honeywell AM series Sparcomix is set to 12 over 24, the pressure is just under 20 psi. The problem that I am having is that the baseboards (rather the pipes in them) are making a lot of noise! I hear the light pings of the fins (which I read on this board is normal), but I also hear loud pings, like someone hitting the pipes with a small hammer, I hear pounding like the pipes litting something and when the pipes are cooling down, in one area there is always a sound as if someone had hit the pipes and they rattle for a bit. Most of the sounds occur when the pipes are warming up, sometimes when they are cooling down. Hopefully someone can tell me if this is normal or is there some problem or do I have air in there? ALso, I read here that I can buy some covers to put over where the fins rest so that they can slide without making sound, what is this called and where can I buy it?! Finally, where the pipes come in through the floors and such, should I caulk or insulate the pipes here to reduce noise? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One last thing, over the summer when I bought that place, I removed the old baseboard covers and the pipes just hung around in the air for a few months until I put the new covers on. When I reinstalled the covers I noticed that not all of the pipes sat nicely on thier holders, some rested with a lot of pressure on the holders while others even were suspended in the air. I do not remember what they looked like before I removed the old covers.

Sorry for the long post!

 

I can stab at some of this.

Suggest not to insulate or caulk around the floor penetrations for the pipes. Cooper expands and contracts a lot and needs room to move.

For plastic sliders on the element brackets, you can make some out of a plastic milk jug, or visit your local plumbing supply house and see if they have the genuine article.

The banging/rattling is most likely the zone valves. I believe older Honeywells are more prone to this. Grady or someone with field experience can chime in here.

A spirovent is an air eliminator. www.spirotherm.com if you want to read about it.

the 170 is your boiler aquastat, in degrees F. That's about right for most applications.

If you have an indirect water heater, the sparcomix may be an anti-scald tempering valve that limits the temperature to the taps (sinks, tub, shower).

The pressure is fine.

Try the above tips for the noise issues and see what happens.

 

Is this a 2 story house if yes, I agree with xiphias about the pressure, If it is a single story water pressure should be around 12-14 PSI. You also should try bleeding the base boards. There should be bleeders at one end if each baseboard. I know you have a spirovent, but it doesn't always work the way they were designed. xiphias is right about not caulking as well.

 

Yes, it is a two story house. There are no bleeders on the baseboards, I bled the system (or at least tried to at the boiler).

I will call the plumbing supply today to see if they have the sliders.

I keep hearing one pipe vibrating somewhere in the wall, could it be just the zone valve as xiphias stated? What is the remedy, can I tie the pipe down if I find it? There were several long sections of pipe that were hanging in my basement that I supported with copper wire.

Also, one of my zone valves is in the manual open position, does this mean that it is toast? How can I check it? If it is toast, does anyone know where I can get the "guts" of the zone valve without the body?

Could my pipes hanging in the air without support have caused some of this problem? Should all of the pipes be resting on the supports in the baseboard covers (I can't get some of them to).

Thank you again.

 

Xiphias is right about the Honeywell zone valves being more prone to making noise than some of the others but the root cause of the problem is an air pocket somewhere in the system. Unless I miss my guess, you probably experience this "banging" in the zone highest from the boiler. I had the same thing in a cutomer's house several years ago & cured the problem by installing a small manual air vent. Once I got the air out, the bang went away.
If the zone valve is open manually, most likely the motor is bad. Motors are available & very easy to change. Check it before you change it.
Suspending the pipes with copper wire is fine. They make actual nail in pipe hangers with a copper or plastic coating. Don't use plain steel ones unless you put a piece of hose between the steel & the copper pipe.

 

So the air can cause the loud pinging too or just the rattling? Shoud I try to get all of the pipes to rest on the supports inside the baseboards or is it not necessary? Thank you.

 

I wanted to try to bleed the system again, and I was told to set all of the zones for "call", shut off the return zones except for one and open the drain and to open the pressure reducer valve so that water comes in while I am draining it out, is this correct?

 

I checked the zone valve and when I put it into the normal position, it does nothing, the switch is just limp, so I guess that the rubber ball that blocks the opening is stuck. Can I pop off the motor and just work the ball around to get it loose or should I go about this some other way? Can anyone offer some insight for my bleeding question above? Thank you all again.

 

If that zone is not calling for heat, the lever should offer a good bit of resistance to moving. Honeywell had a lot of trouble with motors some years back. Try removing just the motor & see if the lever springs back to the closed position. If it does, replace the motor. If the lever is still stuck you will likely have to replace the whole valve.

Before I can offer advice on bleeding, I will need to see pictures of the boiler & near boiler piping. You can post them on photobucket or similar photo hosting web site & provide a link here.

 

Alright, here are the links to my photos, please let me know the proper technique to bleed this system. I also included a picture of the bad zone valve, can I just unscrew the motor and see what happens (turn of power first?). Also, I have a picture of the press. gauge, it is loose and if I want to replace it, do I have to drain the system? Thank you again!

 

To replace the gauge, you close every valve you can find, drop the pressure on the boier to zero via the boiler drain at the bottom of the boiler, unscrew the old gauge, & install the new one. By doing it this way, you minimize the amount of water you loose & the amount of air you introduce.

Zone valve: Yes, turn off the power, remove the one screw (quite small) holding the motor, give the motor a slight twist (counter-clockwise?) & it should come right off. You may have to hold or wiggle the manual lever to remove the motor.

Bleeding: After re-reading your earlier posts & seeing the photos, I don't know if air is the problem or not. The air/zone valve noise is usually a bang (water hammer) type of noise & those spirovents (brass part in front of boiler exhaust pipe) are usually very good at removing air as long as the cap is left loose. The pinging sound is likely just heat expansion of the pipes, especially the baseboard. Bleeding could make matters worse.

 

Thank you very much for all of your information. I am still worried about the clanking and occasional banging, it worries my, I don't want to spring a leak anywhere because of it. Just for future reference though, what would be the proper method for bleeding this system? Is the way I mentioned earlier correct? Thank you very much again.

 

Turn off power. Lock open all zone valves. Close all yellow handled ball valves for the heating loops & the large yellow handled ball valve below the hose bib (see pic 00002). Open one supply & it's corresponding return ball valve. Connect a hose to the hose bib (blue hand wheel behind gas pipe in pic 00002). Allow water to flow until you get no more bubbles. Repeat for each zone in turn. Restore system ball & zone valves to their normal positions & restore power.

 

I switched out the motor on the zone valve and now everything works fine. I am still getting all kinds of noise throughout the house though. At times there is even some loud banging, it is very worrysome. Do you think then that I should not worry about it? Also, thank you for the instructions on bleeding, but I wanted to ask, do I need to open the pressure reducer valve when doing it? Thank you very much for all of your help!

 

As long as you can maintain close to 10# while purging there's no need to bypass the reducing valve. Bypassing will force more water thru the system faster but sometimes faster than the system can handle & you end up popping the relief valve.

Sounds are really hard to troubleshoot in person & on the web next to impossible. If it is really hard bangging, like water hammer, you likely have some air still & purging won't always take it out. You may have to experiment to see which zone(s) bang & if it (they) only do it when that is the last zone valve to close.